On 7th February
2014, renowned author and creator of the Game of Thrones
series, George R. R. Martin, welcomes to the
stage lead actress Amy-Joyce Hastings for an
interview following The Callback Queen's US
Premiere at his Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe.
This brought full circle a chain of events which
began with a humble self tape for HBO's Game of Thrones.

Martin, who is also an executive
producer on the TV show, explains the series of
events that led to him presenting the North
American premiere of The Callback Queen. “Hundreds
of actors auditioned for roles both large and
small in HBO’s Game of Thrones”, he says,
“Only a handful were cast. Thousands more tried
to get auditions, but were never given the
chance to read. In the old days, aspiring stars
sent off resumes and 8x10 glossies to directors,
producers, and casting directors.

They still do that,
but these days some also upload their own
auditions on Youtube, Vimeo, and similar sites
on the internet. Amy-Joyce Hastings
was one of those, as I discovered one day when
dozens of my fans and readers began to send me
emails with links to a reading by a lovely young
red-haired Irish actress.”

“I’ve been a big reader of fantasy
novels since I was a little girl”, says
Hastings, “and when I found out that a fantasy
TV series based on A Song of Ice and Fire was
going to be made by HBO I got very excited!”
Hastings, who began her career as a child
actress playing Julie Christie’s daughter in
Working Title's Fools of Fortune, got hold of
the script and recorded an audition tape, which
she posted online. Within two days
the tape had thousands of views and comments on
forums and fansites such as Winteriscoming.net.
“It caught me completely unawares. I had
recorded this self tape as a speculative thing,
never intending it to be seen by anyone except
hopefully the casting director, but it got an
incredible amount of interest online, and I had
some very encouraging feedback from people who'd
seen it, which was a lovely surprise”, says
Amy-Joyce. Fans of the
books were impressed enough to send the link to
Martin. “They liked what she’d done”, he says,
“and so did I, when curiosity drove me to click
on one of those links and take a look. So I
dropped her a note, told her the name of our
casting director, wished her luck... and thought
no more of it, until I heard about The Callback Queen.”

“Unfortunately the casting industry in London
has a kind of heirarchy to it”, says Amy-Joyce,
“and the agent I was with in Ireland at that
time wasn't in a position to capitalise on the
momentum, so I missed out on being seen.”

While she was
disappointed not to have had the chance to
audition, the experience did have a silver
lining, as Martin explains, “Amy-Joyce never got
to audition for Game of Thrones. That’s
something she has in common with thousands of
other actors from all over the world. Unlike all
the others, however, Amy-Joyce took life’s
lemons and made lemonade; she shared her
experiences with her friend Graham Cantwell, an
Irish filmmaker, who took her tale about a young
actress attempting to land a role in an epic
fantasy, and turned it into a movie… a romantic
comedy about moviemakers and aspiring actors
that pokes fun at the whole casting carousel…
starring Amy-Joyce Hastings.”